Montreal, 10th June 2007

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton scarcely made a wrong move as he raced to a debut victory in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix held in perfect conditions on the Ile de Notre Dame in Montreal. The rookie, who had never seen the circuit before, put his McLaren on pole position and only lost the lead during pit stops in what was an action-packed race in which there were no less than four pace cars.

Nick Heidfeld drove an equally perfect race to second place, but behind him there was almost chaos, as drivers suffered incident and accident, the worse, by far, befalling Robert Kubica who crashed violently just before Montreal's hairpin. In spite of his car being wrecked, the Polish driver was amazingly unhurt, a testament to the remarkable safety drive in modern Formula One.

Among those to suffer were both Ferrari drivers. Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa started fourth and fifth respectively but Massa ran fourth during the early stages and Raikkonen was two places further back.



They were holding these places when the first safety car was deployed after Adrian Sutil hit the wall and his Spyker had to be removed to safety. When the pit lane was opened, a number of cars made pit stops, including Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella, both of whom rejoined against a red light for which they were subsequently black-flagged and excluded from the race.

Almost immediately after the track was clear, Kubica hit Jarno Trulli from behind and was launched into a terrifying series of rolls which prompted another safety period while the driver was removed to the medical centre. Once again, that shook up the order, leaving Raikkonen in tenth place at half distance. Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso were also penalised with a ten second stop and go penalty for pitting for fuel during the first safety car period, but they had little choice.

On lap 50 of the 70 laps, the safety car was again deployed, this time to clear up the track because of debris left by Christijan Albers' Spyker after he went off the circuit and lost his nose section. At this stage, both Raikkonen and Alonso pitted from sixth and seventh, and staged a great drag race out of the pits which the World Champion won, but then he went off at the first series of corners for the fourth time in this race, and dropped back.

After another safety car period to remove Liuzzi's crashed car, with ten laps to go, and most of the drivers on soft tyres, Hamilton was heading for his maiden win and pulling away from second placed Heidfeld. Amazingly, Alex Wurz was in third place from 19th on the grid and gaining on Heidfeld who was suffering grained tyres. Behind Wurz, Kovalainen was next pushed hard by Raikkonen and then came Alonso.

But in the closing stages, an astonishing Takuma Sato came through to overtake Ralf Schumacher and then Fernando Alonso to claim sixth place behind Kovalainen. Alonso was seventh from Ralf Schumacher eighth, while Mark Webber, at one time third, finished in ninth place ahead of another potential top six finisher, Nico Rosberg who fell back after his penalty. It was that sort of a race.

Hamilton's win gives him an eight point lead in the championship over teammate Alonso, the Spaniard now a full seven points ahead of Massa who failed to score for the first time this year. Raikkonen is now six points behind his Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro teammate and only a point ahead of Heidfeld. In the Constructors' series, McLaren have 88 points to Ferrari's 60, but all that could change at Indianapolis next weekend, round seven of the 17 round championship.